


but please don't bite

by growlery writes (growlery)



Category: Call Me Katie (Web Series)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, WIP Amnesty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:22:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24099535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/growlery/pseuds/growlery%20writes
Summary: AU where Bates figures things out a little quicker, and Katie fake dates him instead.
Kudos: 3





	but please don't bite

It’s Bianca who answers the door, and it’s all Bates can do to not melt into a puddle, especially when she smiles at him. 

“Hey,” he says, beaming back at her, “is Katie in?”

“Yeah, she’s just upstairs,” Bianca says, stepping aside to let him in. He does, still smiling at her, and he’s desperately thinking of something witty and charming to say when she says, “Just go on up, I’m studying down here.”

“Sure,” Bates says, and she’s turned away before he can think of anything else. Shit, he really needs to get better at this if he’s actually gonna be doing this wooing thing now. 

Katie’s door is ajar, and he can hear her talking, but it doesn’t seem like anyone else is in her room. Bates pauses, straightens himself, and then leaps into the room. “Hello, Katie’s viewers, it is I, George Bates,” he announces, and Katie throws a pillow at him. “What are you filming?”

Katie groans, covers her hands with her face. Bates flings himself onto her bed, making a point to avoid her laptop but also totally look at the screen. 

“Why are you asking Curtis if he wants to be your boyfriend?”

Katie glares at him. “Because everyone else on my list of maybe-not-total-douchebags said no, and it was a short fucking list to start with. This is a disaster.”

She goes sideways, flops her head on his shoulder, and he pats her hair sympathetically. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

“I know,” she says, “but I promised Binc, and she really, really wants this. To experience _the joys of romance_ , or whatever.” She sighs heavily. “I don’t know why, since all guys are total jerkfaces.”

“Hey,” Bates says, and Katie says, “Don’t not-all-men me, Bates,” and Bates rolls his eyes. 

“I wasn’t,” he says, even though he kinda was. Katie literally said _all_ , and he’s _right here_ trying to be a supportive friend. 

“Good,” she says, satisfied, “because you’re not a total jerkface, and-” She sits up abruptly. There is something terrifying on her face. “Wait. You don’t have a girlfriend, right?”

“Uhhhhhhhhhhh,” Bates says, terrified. “No. Katie. _No_.”

“But you’re the only guy at our school who’s not the actual worst,” Katie says. “Except Gleeson, but that’s obviously out of the question.”

“But I _like your sister_ ,” Bates says, and then claps his hand over his mouth. Katie frowns, and then Katie laughs. 

Actually, no. Katie _howls_ with laughter. 

“Did you think I didn’t know? Did you think anybody in the entire _universe_ didn’t know you think Bianca hung the fucking sun, Bates?” Bates flushes hot, then cold, and looks away. Katie stops laughing. “No, hey, Bates, it’s- it’s cute. That you like her so much.” 

Katie wraps a tentative arm around him, and Bates is still hurt, but he’s not too hurt to turn down cuddles. He leans into it, and he feels Katie relax. 

“Thanks,” he mutters. “I can’t believe you know I like Bianca and you _still_ thought fake dating me would be a good idea.”

“Are you kidding, it makes it an even better idea,” Katie says. “It’s that old trope, right, dating someone to make someone else jealous, it’s _perfect_.”

“I thought you hated that trope,” Bates says, “I thought it was unhealthy and manipulative and sexist and-”

“It’s for a good cause,” she says, “come on. Help me, George Bates, you’re my only hope.”

“Fuck you, you know how much I love Obi-Wan.”

“Please be the Obi-Wan to my Princess Leia,” Katie says. 

“Leia Organa,” Bates says, a little pointed, “never had to fake date anyone so Luke could experience the joys of romance. With _me_. Or, you know. Whoever she likes, she’s her own person.”

“Well, duh,” Katie says. “Look, you don’t have to do this. But I have to fake date someone, and you’re one of my best friends. It’d be actually kinda fun to fake date you.”

“I’m offended you’d even think otherwise,” Bates says loftily, because excuse you, he’d be the _best_ fake boyfriend, and Katie grins. 

“Fake dates with Bates,” she says, and Bates beams. 

“Kate’s fake dates with Bates,” he says, and Katie says, “Don’t call me Kate, dickhead,” but she’s smiling, too. 

*

“So I’m fake dating Katie now,” Bates says. 

“That’s,” Gleeson says, and Bates says, “I know.”

“If you’re fake dating Katie, you can’t be actual dating Bianca,” Gleeson says, and Bates says, “I _know_ ,” again, but quieter this time. 

Gleeson shuffles over on Bates’s bed and Bates flops down next to him, throws his bag down on the ground next to- oh. 

“Oh, dude, that bad?” he says, motioning at Gleeson’s overnight bag, and Gleeson makes a face. 

“Just couldn’t face it tonight,” he says, and he’s trying to sound cheerful, but that stopped fooling Bates about a week after the first time he showed up at Bates’s house without warning. 

Bates sits up and hugs him. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

“It’s fine, hey, we were talking about you,” Gleeson says, and Bates snorts. 

“Your shit is way more important than my shit.”

“My shit is boring and depressing and you’ve heard it a hundred times already,” Gleeson says, and Bates hugs him a little tighter, doesn’t let go even when Gleeson relaxes. “How come you’re fake dating Katie?”

“It’s a long story,” Bates says. “You can just the watch video, actually; she said she’d put it up some time tonight.”

“You filmed it?”

Bates shrugs. “She was filming when I got there, and she asked if I minded and I was like nah. It’s good drama for the viewers, right?”

“I guess,” Gleeson says. “As long as you don’t abandon George Squared for Call Me Katie.” 

There’s something weird in his voice, and Bates squeezes his waist, says, “Dude, never, George Squared _for life_.”

Gleeson laughs. “We only have to do this project for a few more months.”

“Well, yeah,” Bates says, instead of saying that it wasn’t really the project he meant there. “But, I don’t know. I kinda like this vlogging thing. But it’d be weird to do it without you.”

Gleeson’s smile turns soft, and Bates feels himself melting, just like with Bianca. “I’ll do it as long as you wanna do it,” he says, and Bates smiles. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] but please don't bite](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24222952) by [LittleRedRobinHood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRedRobinHood/pseuds/LittleRedRobinHood)




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